


Sick Leave

by Fox_In_A_Box



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Humor, M/M, One Shot, Swearing, as always, i never thought i'd write a sick fic yet here i am
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 17:23:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17812238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fox_In_A_Box/pseuds/Fox_In_A_Box
Summary: "You look terrible."Bastard, Giriko thought. Maybe he was especially irritable because he was sick. Maybe the kid could just shut the fuck up and refrain from aggravating his already pitiful situation with sarcastic remarks.





	Sick Leave

**Author's Note:**

  * For [randomnickname](https://archiveofourown.org/users/randomnickname/gifts).



> Little gift for the amazing Randomnickname ;) I finally managed to summon some inspiration to write a sequel for my other Girijasu fic "The Greater Good". Hope you enjoy!

The faint sound of the front door being unlocked managed to reach through his half-asleep brain and alert him that someone was about to walk in. That someone, probably being a certain blond Death Scythe. Giriko groaned.

 

His head hurt, his bones hurt and every time he tried to swallow he felt like he had just downed a glass of the strongest alcoholic beverage he had ever tasted - except there was only burning and no warm, euphoric satisfaction afterwards. Even worse, no matter how many blankets he had buried himself underneath, they still weren't enough to chase away the unpleasant goosebumps on his skin. The last thing he needed to hear was the voice of his watchdog recently turned fuck-buddy. And yet.

 

"You look terrible."

 

It took Giriko some serious effort before he was able to crack open one eye and turn his head to the side, so that he could look at the other man in the face. There he was, standing by the bed. Justin Law - dressed casually for once, with his white button-down shirt tucked in a pair of dark jeans and the unmistakable shadow of a smirk in the curl of his lips. For one who had just found his housemate almost lifeless on the couch, he looked rather amused and not nearly enough concerned.

 

_Bastard_ , Giriko thought. Maybe he was especially irritable because he was sick. Maybe the kid could just shut the fuck up and refrain from aggravating his already pitiful situation with sarcastic remarks.

 

"Shut up," he grumbled, his voice sounding way less intimidating than he would have liked. The effort of uttering the two words was instantly punished by a short fit of coughing that made his head throb and the whole room spin around him for a few terrifying moments. He tried to remember the last time he had felt so awful, but to no avail; his memories became somewhat hazy after the third or fourth life.

 

And it was all Justin's fault.

It had been _his_ idea to rip apart Giriko's shirt and use it to patch up the wound of the student they had been sent to rescue, a couple of days earlier. The fact that said student had been slowly dying of blood-loss, at the time, didn't sound like an acceptable excuse anymore - not when walking home shirtless in the middle of winter had reduced him to a weak, sneezing shell of his former self.

 

"My head's on fire," Giriko managed to croak. "I need painkillers."

 

Justin raised an eyebrow at his request. "What's the magic word?"

 

"Fuck you."

 

"Close, but not quite."

 

Still, Justin disappeared from his field of vision and, judging by rhythmic tapping of his shoes against the tiled floor, went off to the bathroom to retrieve what he had so politely demanded. What little relief Giriko felt in realising the kid had no intention of putting up a fight, was immediately overshadowed by another, graver concern. The fact that he was left in the care of a twenty-something whose job was to execute people first and ask questions later didn't reassure him much, for some reason. Besides, they had stopped trying to kill each other only a year or so before, and he would have been a fool to underestimate the Death Scythe's capacity of taking advantage of his current weakened state. Oh, he could call him paranoid, all he wanted, but--

 

His train of thought was interrupted when a cold glass of water was pressed into his hand.

 

"Here," Justin said. "This should help."

 

Giriko narrowed his eyes, examining the white powder floating in the water. It didn't help that whatever injuries he had collected in the past had always been treated with alcohol or an impromptu body change. Or both, in some rare instances.

 

Sensing his hesitation, Justin went on: "It's painkillers, as you asked. I'm not trying to poison you."

 

To Giriko's ears, it sounded less like a reassuring statement and more like a suspiciously specific denial. He pulled himself up a little, an effort that once again proved to be too much for his tired muscles, and he ended up half-slumped, half-propped against the cushions. At least, from the new angle, he could look at the other man in the eyes to show him how little he trusted his words.

 

"If I die I'll haunt you forever, mark my fuckin' words."

 

Justin clicked his tongue, unimpressed. "Always so dramatic."

 

Giriko shot one last wary glance at the glass in his hand and then, after having taken in a deep breath, he emptied it in one go. After all, it couldn't be worse than that, could it?

 

 

****

 

 

The following day proved that it could, indeed, be worse.

 

Justin had gracefully left him the king-sized bed all for himself and decided to sleep on the couch - not because he any qualms about sleeping in the same bed, but, as he had made it abundantly clear, he would have rather not run the risk of catching a nasty cold and remain bed-bound when he had three missions of capital importance scheduled for the following days.

 

On the flip side, Justin had been gone on some errand for most part of the day, forcing Giriko to get up and fetch himself the occasional glass of water lest he died from dehydration. He was left stumbling through the apartment in desperate search of the TV remote first and of another dose of painkillers later. Needless to say, it did precious little to improve his pitiful condition. He found himself collapsing back on the bed before midday.

 

"Congratulations, you seem to have caught a cold," Justin declared as he came back, later in the evening, with more glee than was acceptable for the situation. "I spoke with one of the doctors at the infirmary and she told me the best medicine is rest. Rest and some food, if you feel like eating."

 

"Great," Giriko huffed.

 

Had he been in better shape, he wouldn't have hesitated before giving him a piece of his mind, maybe adding a biting remark or two about how pathetic it was that someone his age had to consult an actual doctor to recognise the symptoms of a cold. As things stood, it was a miracle he had managed to convey a hint of bitter sarcasm in that single word. Arguing with him wasn't as fun when his brain struggled to keep track of the conversation and every sentence longer than five words became increasingly more likely to end with an undignified fit of violent coughing.

 

He buried his face in the pillow, desperately willing himself to fall back asleep. Little did he know that the one of the worst things about being affected by a stupid cold had yet to come.

 

And it arrived, at last, in the form of a bowl full of a non-described brown-ish liquid Justin presented him for dinner. Something that must have been chopped vegetables, but he wasn't really sure, floated ominously on the surface. _A soup_ he realised. Just not a very inviting one, especially when his stomach had been acting up all morning, to the point that he had foregone eating entirely.

 

Giriko blinked, an effort in both focus and dry out his watery eyes. He looked at the bowl, then he looked up at the Death Scythe. Then back at the bowl. He wondered if he had started seeing things in the midst of his feverish delirium, or if Justin really looked embarrassed.

 

"What's that?"

 

"I followed an online recipe," he admitted. "It should be a mushroom and potato soup. I'm saying 'should' because we didn't have potatoes, so I used carrots instead."

 

All of a sudden, Giriko found himself in the peculiar condition of not being able to decide if he should have laughed or started worrying for his life. In doubt, he burst out in a rough laughing fit. A quite painful one, but nevertheless satisfying if only for the way Justin's eyebrows knitted together in a displeased frown.

 

"You expect me to eat that thing?"

 

"Yeah?" Justin's voice didn't sound nearly as stern as it did whenever he spoke to his superiors, or when he taunted his opponent on the battlefield. No, this time it was just...hesitant.

 

He wanted to tell him to fuck off and let him rest - no, better, to fuck off and eat that _thing_ himself and see how he liked it. And he was about to tell him precisely that, having even gathered what little energy he had to formulate a nice comeback in his head. But then, his stomach made a strange sound. Giriko sighed. "Ugh, fine."

 

It was just as well that his sense of taste was hampered much like his sense of smell. He made a mental note to mock him endlessly about his embarrassing lack of cooking skills, once his throat had stopped punishing him for every word he tried to utter.

 

He woke up several times in the middle of the night, sweaty and restless, and struggling to tell reality apart from the strange, confusing scenes that populated his fever dreams. And he still felt cold, so incredibly cold in spite of the heavy blanket.

 

Once, he was even able to distinguish the silhouette of Justin, sitting by the bed on one of the kitchen chairs, reading a book by the faint light of the bedside lamp. As he heard him shift on the mattress, he lifted his eyes from the pages and offered him a look. Not a mocking one, nor an annoyed one. It was too soft to be a case of the former and not enough bitter to be the latter.

 

"Go back to sleep," he whispered.

 

Then, just for one moment, he felt Justin reaching out to him with his hand and treading his fingers through his hair ever so gently, as if coaxing him into relaxing and closing his eyes.

 

His fever must have gotten worse, if he had started hallucinating.

 

****

 

 

Three days in and Giriko was starting to accept the fact that he had only so many hours left to live.

 

Fate had been cruel with him - letting him live twenty-eight lives and murdering him with a common cold on the twenty-ninth, just when he had started to find his balance and a job that didn't entail sitting on his ass for ages, letting his bloothirst boil inside his veins as he waited for his mistress' return.

 

Admittedly, the headache and sore throat weren't getting worse, but they weren't getting better either. What worried him above anything else, however, was his housemate's odd behaviour. Justin hadn't made a single attempt at taunting him all day. Even worse, his expression tended to morph into a strange concerned grimace every time he coughed or asked him for some relief in the form of yet another dose of painkillers for his headache. The runny nose was another beast altogether - there was a reason why he hated winter and that had mostly to do with his tendency to develop annoying sneezing fits whenever the temperatures started to drop.

 

Never leaving his - well, Justin's bed, he ended up having more than enough time to turn his thoughts and considerations in his head. At last, he reached to a grim conclusion. There was only one plausible reason for the bastard to be so quiet and compliant all of a sudden, and that was Giriko's inevitable, tragic demise. Which seemed to be approaching faster and faster for every hour that passed.

 

Any doubts he still harboured about his imminent demise where swept away when Justin, with a concerned look in his eyes, approached the bed and asked him: "How are you feeling?"

 

Giriko only managed a half-hearted "terrible" in response.

 

He was really going to die, wasn't he?

 

 

*****

 

 

And then, a miracle suddenly happened when he woke up on the fourth morning.

 

As he opened his eyes, Giriko registered a fundamental change in his predicament. The headache was almost gone and he felt...well, good. So good, in fact, that he had no trouble sliding off the bed and padding through the corridor to join his irritating housemate in their small kitchen.

 

"You're up," Justin said, not even raising his eyes from his breakfast when he heard him approaching.

 

Giriko dropped on the empty chair beside him.

"Won't die because of a stupid cold," he mumbled in response, reaching out to steal a piece of pancake from the blond's plate.

 

"Four or five days is the standard duration," he said with a shrug, before taking another bite of his pancakes. "Or so I've heard. By the way, Lord Death assigned us a new mission. There have been reports of a strange cult in southern Germany centered around the worship of an ancient artefact. He thought your expertise would be useful. We leave tomorrow morning."

 

Giriko stared at him. "You're kidding."

 

"I'm not."

 

"Yes, you're _fuckin'_ kidding. I almost died because of a stupid cold and you're asking me to hop on a plane and travel to Europe with you to bash some cultists' heads?"

 

"So?" Justin's lips curled into a small grin. "Is that a yes?"

 

"Of course it's a yes, what kinda stupid question is that?!"

 


End file.
